A Single Night Each Year
by WizMonCruWil
Summary: I got the idea for this from this beautiful fan art in a Tweet, which also asked the question: what if Ben appeared to Rey for a single day/night each year, and at one visit, he returned to find her with a child? Of course, it gave me the itch again, so I threw together this. Please read and review and enjoy!
1. Chapter 1: Goodbye Until (No) Tomorrow

**Chapter 1: Goodbye Until (No) Tomorrow**

The night was waning fast. She could see it, the moon sinking into the sky through the window molded from hardened, damp sand. She could see the moonlight, fading from his deep eyes. The horizon was shifting from an inky black to a potent grey.

Rey and Ben held each other in the darkness, their naked skin pressed together and slick with sweat. They knew how to make love, and not waste time while doing it.

Because in a situation such as theirs, if they were given half a chance to experience something sweet, they grabbed it, and held fast.

Rey had cursed the Force as cruel, for taking her love away from her after only a first, all-too-brief kiss on the rocky plains of Exogol. Since the end of the war, she had settled on Tatooine, reverting back to the childlike desert of stymied growth. Lost and adrift in a landscape so endless it was a wonder she hadn't been driven mad. She still sometimes wondered if she was mad. Her entire life had perverted into a sick joke since losing her Ben. She had thought fiction couldn't be any stranger than the hell that was her life... until it got even stranger.

A year ago exactly - that would have marked the first anniversary of the Battle of Exogol, and _his_ death - Rey had been cleaning in the former Lars homestead, as dusk fell by way of the twin suns when quite suddenly:

There he was. Ben just appeared, right in front of her. At first, she had cried, bitter in her conviction that the Force had dared and deigned to mock her, after an exhausting enough day observing this first year without him, and acknowledging as best she could his sacrifice. "You're not real," she had tearfully whispered at him, shaking her head.

Then Ben had taken her in his arms and kissed her, the touch of his lips sending a shock through her body that this was real. In a sense.

But apparently it wouldn't be for long. Somehow, the Force had deemed it fit to have Ben appear to the other half of his Dyad in flesh and blood, but only for one night each year, after which he would fade away into the Cosmic Force. In that first, frantic bout of lovemaking and canoodling afterwards post-coitus, Ben had explained that he didn't manifest as a Force Ghost in the world beyond - not yet, anyway. When or if that would ever happen, he wasn't certain, never mind what it might mean for their one-night-a-year tryst. As the sun had risen that following morning, he had faded away in Rey's embrace, promising her that he would see her again in a year hence. The image of Ben disappearing before her eyes was enough to traumatize Rey and marvel at the Force's twisted mindset.

But she had dutifully waited, counting down the days much as she had while waiting in vain for her parents on Jakku, until this second time he did appear. Rey and Ben wasted even less precious time this cycle, working out their anguish and grief through hot, raw sex.

Now, he and she were simply dozing, and willing the moon to slow to a stop, or move backwards across the heavens - anything to keep the fair but sadistic sun from arising to kill its celestial rival.

"I wish this moment could last forever," Rey murmured, snuggling her head under Ben's chin.

She felt him shift against her to smile down into her chestnut hair. "Forever? You wanna spend forever with me, Rey?"

She beamed. "I do," she moaned.

He kissed her crown. "I wish I could make it so. But I have to go soon, darling."

She whimpered, clutching to him. The gray was shifting rapidly to a bright pink. Sunrise was minutes away. "No... please... Ben..."

"At least you're here, and have a life."

Tears angrily pricked at her eyes. "Life without you is not a life at all!" she snarled. "The Force is wicked!"

Ben just chuckled. "You don't mean that."

"I mean it!" she growled, clutching at him.

"At least you're alive! My sacrifice was worth something. And if I could do it again, I would stay that course."

Rey shook her head, eyes watering. "You don't mean that."

"I do mean it. I would die on Exogol again and again and again for you, just as long as you were left alive and unharmed... and waiting for me on this other side when I got out to be with you."

Orange flecks streaked across the sands beyond. Sunrise. Watching in melodramatic horror and grief, Ben began to fade away from Rey's embrace.

"Ben!" she pleaded.

He just grinned at her. "Keep a fair-weather eye on the horizon," he murmured.

Sobbing, Rey nodded, stealing one last kiss from his lips before these were the last to disappear.


	2. Chapter 2: I Have Been Waiting For You

**Chapter 2: I Have Been Waiting For You**

Rey watched the pair of suns anxiously, with breathless anticipation, willing them to sink faster, faster still. She begged of the moon to take flight and make this endless day endless night. For tonight, she would see her Ben for the third time since his death.

Another year older already - 23 (or so she had always estimated - Rey had never been entirely sure about her precise age). And now, besides Jedi, she had a new title.

The title of mother.

Seated on her knees in the windswept sands, Rey beamed down with love at the cooing baby in her arms. She had discovered that she had fallen pregnant not too long after Ben had, for the second time since his death, faded away. Her pregnancy had certainly helped her pass most of the time - those first nine months worth. Rey had toiled through the pains of childbearing and labor alone, telling no one - not even her friends, Poe and Finn, still far away on Ajan Kloss and Chandrila or whatever distant star on which they happened to be. The baby boy had come to her, on a night of tears and pain, witnessed only by BB8, and a droid midwife summoned discreetly from distant Anchorhead. To Rey's everlasting joy, her son looked just like Ben, in most places - the deep blue eyes and little tufts of black hair on top of his head. Ben Solo, Jr. was three months old now, and already getting so big.

And in moments, his father and namesake would learn he had a child for the very first time. Rey was wearing Ben's black shirt for the occasion, the fabric hanging limp on her thin frame so that it appeared like a simple dress.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Rey pressed a kiss on little Ben's face. "Are you ready to meet your father?" she cooed. The baby blessed her with a gummy grin and gurgled in response. Rey trilled out a laugh that quickly morphed into a happy sob.

Tatooine's horizon was now a deep purple, and as Rey watched, the last of the twin suns set. In the distance, there was a flash of green light...

And there, already approaching at a run, was the handsome figure Rey knew to be her Ben. His black hair was windswept, his expression beaming and hopelessly excited. An expression that now, as he drew closer, furrowed into bewildered confusion, than bloomed back into astonished joy, when he saw his beloved Rey, holding their baby in her arms.

Ben came into full view at last. He gave a shout of triumphant joy, picking Rey up and spinning her around, her voice shrieking into melodious peals of giggles. Finally, setting her down, beaming into each other's eyes, Rey and Ben embraced and shared a passionate kiss. When they broke the kiss at last dreamily, the couple looked down with smiles at their baby boy nestled between them. Rey was radiant, bouncing the baby gently.

"I have a surprise for you..." she murmured to both father and son. "Benny... this is your daddy."

She saw real tears glistening in Ben's perfect eyes. "B... Ben?" he croaked, unable to believe his ears.

Rey nodded. "There was no other name," she murmured. Resting a hand on his chest, she crooned, "Ben... this is our son."

Ben slowly ran a hand over his son's forehead, drinking him in with wonder. "Well..." he croaked out through a clogged throat. "The Force may be cruel, but now and again, it has been known to show mercy. Has it not been merciful to us, Rey, in this?"

She nodded, needing to concede this tiny point. "It has," and she beamed down on her son with unabashed love. Taking her husband's hand, she grinned. "Come, my handsome Jedi Knight. The night is young, but it won't be for long. I need you, my husband, to make love to me."

And the little family disappeared into the moisture farm homestead, where but a single night to be together as a family awaited.


End file.
